


Hot Tin Roof

by renquise



Series: Life is pretty mundane, even for elite mercenary teams. [3]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-03
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sniper sits on a roof.  Yep, that's about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Tin Roof

Lying on the roof, Sniper can feel the left-over heat seeping from the corrugated metal. It would’ve be scaldingly hot at the peak of the day (not that he’d be all the way up on the open roof during fighting, because honestly, that was just asking to get capped in the head), but now, it had faded to a pleasant warmth at his back, slowly penetrating through his shirt.

It had been especially hot that day, the fighting slow and sluggish. Even Scout had been slower than usual, the back of his shirt soaked through with sweat—and he’d definitely been throwing himself into the river a few more times than was strictly necessary for a tactical advantage. The heat really didn’t bother him too much, but he couldn’t say that he hadn’t been tempted to join the kid. Instead, Sniper couldn’t help but chuckle to himself a bit on the end of his scope, watching Spy painstakingly keep his suave façade up and insisting on wearing his suit to the bitter end. As the day progressed, though, Sniper had definitely seen the occasional grimace as he pulled his balaclava away from the dampness at the back of his neck.

Soldier had suggested that they go shirts and skins (and they would be skins, because real men didn’t need goddamn clothes, why, their flesh should be able to deflect bullets with sheer testosterone). It had almost seemed like a good idea in the heat, too, but Medic had shot that idea down pretty quickly, following with the injunction that they keep hydrated, because he did not want to waste his precious time on idiots who keeled over with heatstroke in the middle of the battlefield. By the end of the day, even Spy had stripped down to his dress shirt, his tie drooping loosely around his neck.

In any case, the day had given way to a balmy summer night—the sort that made Sniper nostalgic for the wide summer sky of the outback stretching above him from horizon to horizon, the Southern Cross sketched out amongst a dizzying spread of stars.

The trap door leading to the roof creaks slightly, and Sniper automatically tilts his head towards the noise. It’s too pleasant an evening to be totally on alert, but instincts die hard.

“Hey there, Sniper—it’s only me and Heavy,” Engineer says, his warm drawl soft in the evening air, “Hope y’ don’t mind a few extra bodies intrudin’ on your solitude.”

Sniper shrugs, settling back more comfortably. “Plenty of roof for everyone, mate.”

The lazy summer air seems to mute even Heavy’s voice to a low rumble. “Is good!” he says. The roof creaks a bit when Heavy settles down with a satisfied groan.

Engineer carefully makes his way over to Sniper over the slant of the roof, slowly sitting down. “Nice night out. Not a cloud in the sky.”

Sniper nods back at him. “Sure is,” he says, pushing his sunglasses back up his the bridge of this nose, “Not that I’m mindin’ your company, but ya don’t often ramble all the way up here, Truckie. Not to mention Heavy.”

“Engineer was talking about shooting stars tonight. Is good place to watch, da?” Heavy says, lying down and shifting occasionally, the metal protesting under his weight.

“Yes indeed—it’s supposed to be one nice shower. And at least we got clear skies with all this danged heat,” says Engineer. He pulls off his hardhat and wipes his forehead. “No moon, either, so it’s pretty much ideal.”

It’s been awhile since he’s seen a proper meteor shower. Fighting keeps them busy, really, and it’s been a long time since he’s had a night to look at the stars—too tired, and besides, it’s still a mite strange, with the stars not being the same around here and all.

A pleasant silence stretches between them, broken only by Heavy humming snatches of something that Sniper vaguely recognizes from one of Medic’s records. There’s a coyote howling somewhere in the distance, and Sniper desultorily looks through his scope, though it’s too far to shoot, even if he wanted to.

“Hey, this is where all you jerks disappeared off to!” From the corner of his eye, Sniper sees Engineer startle a bit at the sound of Scout’s voice, and it’s only experience that keeps him from jerking up.

Scout clambers out the hatch and jogs over to them, feet thumping hollowly on the sheet metal. He bounces across the roof, making a few restless circles and investigating how high up they are before Engineer tells him to “sit your rear down, you’re makin’ me twitchy as a jackrabbit with all your prancin’ about by the danged edge of the roof.”

Scout deliberately scoots a little closer to the gutter with a grin just to see Engineer grimace a bit, then gives a short bark of laughter and throws himself down to sit next to Sniper. “Alright, Ma.”

The silence lasts all of five seconds before Scout pipes up again. “So are you guys goin’ to be boring up here, too? I mean, Medic, Spy, Pyro and Demo are playing freakin’ bridge downstairs, and I’m startin’ to wonder if that wouldn’t be less brain-melting. I mean, at least they had Soldier keepin’ score, and that could be freakin’ hilarious.”

Tipping his hardhat back, Engineer raises an eyebrow at him. “They kicked you out for callin’ out their cards, didn’t they?”

Scout pauses. “You don’t know that.”

At that, Sniper snorts. “You’re damn lucky Demo didn’t club ya over the noggin. He takes his bridge games pretty darn seriously. Damn near took my finger off when I tried taking back a card I’d played, last time.”

Silence settles over them again as Scout wiggles his fingers in front of his face, probably contemplating if bothering Demoman again was worth a couple of digits. There’s a cicada buzzing somewhere close to the base, a constant background din stretching up to their ears.

Scout starts thumping a light tattoo on the roof with the heels of his feet.

Heavy ponderously turns his head over to Scout, pointedly looking at his feet.

Scout stops thumping on the roof.

“You guys are all giant losers,” he says, hunching over his knees.

Maybe in an attempt to keep Scout from driving all of them utterly bonkers, Engineer sits up a bit, pointing up at the sky. “Hey, look there.”

There’s a steadily glowing speck moving across the sky, cutting across the other lights in a lightly curving arc.

“It’s one of them russky satellites, I reckon.”

Heavy sits up, a wide smile stretching across his face. “Da, is good Soviet work!”

Engineer smiles back at him. “Damn interestin’ stuff, that is. Imagine that, launchin’ a chunk ‘a metal into outer space. Makes you wonder, really.”

“Geez, Heavy, aren’t you guys firin’ crazy-ass shit like dogs and turtles up there?”

“And strong Russian men, too.”

“We got someone up there, too, man!”

“Da, is true. You can be next teeny American man in space. I will throw you, and you should go far enough. Perhaps.”

“Now there’s a temptin’ proposition. Just watch out for the reentry.”

Scout flips them all the bird, turning to Sniper. “Hey, hey, Sniper, it’s not like I care or anything, but can your scope get a closer look? I mean, I really don’t care, but can ya?” Scout scoots closer to him, and Sniper has to smack his hands away when he grabs at his rifle. Scout scowls at him. “Geez, man, just let me look! Come on!”

Reluctantly, Sniper hands over his rifle, keeping a close eye on Scout. Sure, Scout knows how to handle weapons, and he isn’t overly protective of his gun—well, at least compared to Heavy and Sasha—but still.

Scout looks contemplatively at the light for a few seconds, then at Engineer. “Hey, hardhat, what we really need is a giant space laser. Like, rig a laser up to one of them satellite-things, and soon as one of them BLU pussies step outside their base, it freakin’ [i]zaps[/i] them out of existence! Well, you know, until they come back, but come on, [i]space laser[/i]!”

Engineer gives him an incredulous look. “Look here, I ain’t nearly read-up enough on aerospace engineering to even make one of them rockets, but what I do know is that that would be damn complicated. I mean, you’d gotta implement a danged precise targetin’ system, and account for the orbit and earth’s rotation, not to mention the difficulty of detectin’ blue from beyond the atmosphere, and…” Engineer pauses, then continues contemplatively, “Though if ya were to—and then—hm.” Moments later, Sniper can see him rummaging in his pockets for a scrap of paper and a pencil.

“Hey, Truckie, you’d better not be trying to make sniping obsolete,” Sniper says as Scout mimes something that vaguely looks like “giant-freaking-death-laser-from-space-fuck-yeah.”

“Huh?” Engineer looks up briefly from what looks like a growing mess of scribbles. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s a damn fool idea, but, you know, it’s interestin’ theoretically.”

Sniper raises an eyebrow. “Theoretically. That’s not overly comfortin’, you know.”

Silence settles across them again, Engineer’s pencil scratching lightly.

It’s steadily getting darker, the very last glow disappearing from the horizon. Engineer clicks on a headlamp, still scribbling down equations and diagrams. Scout’s head droops briefly against his shoulder, and Sniper gives him a light shove, startling him out of his doze for a second. A few minutes later, Scout’s head is back on his shoulder, and, well, Sniper just feels way too relaxed to bother with shoving it off again. As long as Scout doesn’t drool on his shirt. Then he’s getting booted off the roof.

“Engineer, over there!” Heavy says suddenly, pointing at a part of the sky just a little to the left of the BLU fort.

At first, it’s just a single streak across the sky, quick enough to be missed, but Sniper still hears himself give a quick shout. “Ah, hey! ‘Nother one!”

Engineer looks up from the sheaf of crumpled papers on his lap with a grin, switching off his light. “Ah, yep, looks like it’s startin’ up. Always did love watchin’ the Pleiades in the summer.”

Scout jerks awake against his shoulder. “What? ‘Nother one of them commie satellites?”

Sniper shoves him all the way off, indicating the part of the sky that Heavy currently has his eyes glued to.

“Aww, yeah, shootin’ stars!” Scout says, throwing a bony elbow into Heavy’s side, “Bet I can count more than you, Heavy. Two!”

“Little tiny Scout eyes are too small to see anything. THREE!” Heavy booms back.

Sniper snorts. “Think I got both of you knuckleheads beat when it comes to eyes, unless you wanna be the one blowing the heads off BLUs half a mile away. That makes six, now, by the way.”

“Hey, no fair! You distracted me!” Scout’s now clambering onto Heavy’s back, trying his level best to block his sight and resisting all of Heavy’s attempts at prying him off. “Seveneightnine ha!”

“If you two idiots throw yourself off the roof with all your horsin’ around—“

“Eleven, twelve. You’d better keep up, Truckie.”

 

Three hours or so later, including a dozen close calls with the edge of the roof, a few aborted heart attacks for Engineer, and one pair of aviators almost lost to a brawl over whether it had been a shooting star or a satellite, resulting in one particularly close call for Scout, the shower seems to be winding down. Sniper stretches, yawning widely, watching a stray meteor burn out every now and again.

Scout is still draped over Heavy, having nodded off about a half hour ago, and seems to be drooling onto Heavy’s vest, as far as Sniper can tell. Heavy shifts a bit, waking Scout up.

“Ha, totally counted more than you did, gigantor,” he mumbles into Heavy’s shoulder, giving him a half-hearted noogie.

“Is not true, little baby is too tired to be awake. Could not count stars when falling asleep, da?” Heavy pats Scout’s head with a massive hand and dumps him onto the roof again. “Is bed-time for little Scouts!”

“What? Fuck you! You’re just too slow to count them, you fatty-mc-fat-fat,” Scout says, ducking under Heavy’s head pats.

There’s something bizarrely comforting about Scout’s high-pitched screaming as Heavy dangles Scout off the roof by his ankles, Engineer groaning into his hands beside him.

“Hundred and twenty-four,” Sniper mutters to himself, knocking his hat back. It sure is a nice night out.


End file.
